The First I Ever Watched Of Firefly Was Seeing Serenity In The Theater After A Friend Told Me It Was

The first I ever watched of Firefly was seeing Serenity in the theater after a friend told me it was pretty much the greatest thing ever. (It was actually the first 'pure' Whedon I watched. I had seen Toy Story, Speed, Alien Resurrection, and Titan AE, but all of those are heavily filtered through other visions.)

Without having seen the show, I absolutely loved the movie; it's self-contained enough for the story to make sense, and sets up the characters with extraordinary efficiency. Of course it worked even better after catching up with the show, given that it follows through on a bunch of arcs there, but it holds together on its own extremely well.

It really does play a little more like a season finale with a huge budget than a movie; I don't think any of the show's charms are lost as a film in that case.

There's a movie, is the thing, where the Reavers are super-important. So.

I’ve heard they play a sizable role in the movie.

I’m honestly considering not watching Serenity. I’m loving the show, but I also love it as television - so much of what Firefly does well is done on the episodic level, to the extent that I can’t imagine that a tie-in movie - which are prone to trying to make the “definitive” take on a franchise - will do the series justice. I have to assume that “my Firefly" will basically be ignored in favor of trying to fit in as much of the iconography and answering as many of the unanswered questions (that I don’t particularly care about) as possible.

I mean, realistically, I’ll probably watch it, because I only have one episode of Firefly left and I want to squeeze out as much of this show as I possibly can, but I’m not optimistic.